The Worst Thing About Chris Christie’s Bullying? He Doesn’t Have To Hide It

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Governor Chris Christie (R-NJ) doesn’t want you to think he’s the kind of guy who would use his power to secretly exact petty revenge against a local official by punishing the people of his own state. No, he’d rather you believe he’s just the kind of guy whose staff thought he was that kind of guy.

Now Christie wants us to believe his staff didn’t learn that lesson. Instead, they learned to do some freelance bullying in his name that he did not sanction and was never made aware of. Then they lied to him about it. So he fired the liars, and now he moves on.

The governor staked his political career on this explanation — that he was incompetently oblivious rather than complicit in violating federal law — and he expects to get away with it, the way he got away with firing Schundler.

Politically, the governor has the savvy to paint himself as a moderate when convenient, a label he contrasts with his image as a “bully” — one he seems to savor and nurture, even though he repeatedly said, “I am not a bully” in his press conference about the bridge scandal. He’s obviously canny enough to know that the public never heard the “not” in Richard Nixon’s “I am not a crook” and John McCain’s “I am not George W. Bush.”

In this way, Christie — who is often depicted as a contrast to the rest of the Republican Party — is the perfect example of a modern Republican.

The GOP is building its post-Bush/Cheney “resurgence” on getting away with things that are non-sensical and often downright cruel.